The Big 3

Coalition for a Prosperous America
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The Big 3 with CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg breaks down the three biggest stories shaping U.S. trade, industrial policy, and the American economy each week.  From tariffs, China, and supply chains to inflation, manufacturing, and economic security, Mihir and Andrew cut through the noise with sharp analysis to explain what’s really happening—and who it benefits. Focused on what matters for American workers and producers, The Big 3 connects the headlines to the deeper forces reshaping the U.S. economy—and what that means for the future of U.S. competitiveness.

Episodes

  1. 6d ago

    The Big 3: How Apple Built China's Manufacturing Empire

    Apple’s decision to move manufacturing to China transformed not only the company, but the global economy. This week’s episode of The Big 3 with CPA senior economist Mihir Torsekar features bestselling author Patrick McGee, whose book Apple in China documents how Apple’s search for manufacturing efficiency helped create one of the world’s most sophisticated industrial ecosystems. Beginning in the late 1990s, Apple outsourced production, eventually concentrating nearly its entire manufacturing base in China. But Apple didn’t simply purchase labor—it invested enormous resources training suppliers, improving manufacturing processes, and building technical expertise throughout China’s industrial base. McGee argues that this transfer of knowledge became one of the most consequential business decisions in modern history. Apple taught suppliers advanced production techniques, developed engineering talent, and helped establish manufacturing capabilities that would later support Chinese champions across numerous industries—not just consumer electronics. The conversation then turns to the geopolitical consequences. Under Xi Jinping, China’s relationship with Apple fundamentally changed. What began as a mutually beneficial manufacturing partnership gradually evolved into strategic dependence. Apple found itself deeply embedded in an industrial ecosystem that China increasingly viewed as a national asset, limiting the company’s flexibility while expanding Beijing’s leverage. Mihir and Patrick also discuss how China’s industrial strategy differed from traditional Western assumptions about globalization. Rather than viewing manufacturing as a low-value activity to outsource, China treated production capacity as a strategic national capability worthy of long-term investment. That approach ultimately allowed Chinese firms to develop expertise that extended far beyond smartphones into electric vehicles, batteries, robotics, and advanced manufacturing. The discussion concludes by examining Apple’s recent lawsuit against OpenAI. McGee argues the legal battle reflects a broader recognition that engineering talent, manufacturing expertise, and proprietary industrial knowledge have become strategic assets. The same questions raised by Apple’s experience in China—who controls production, where innovation occurs, and how industrial capabilities are developed—are now emerging in the AI era. Throughout the conversation, McGee emphasizes that understanding China’s rise requires looking beyond simple explanations involving low wages or subsidies. China’s success also reflects decades of deliberate investment in manufacturing capability, workforce development, and industrial ecosystems. For policymakers seeking to rebuild American manufacturing, those lessons deserve careful study. CHAPTERS: 00:00 — Introduction 02:03 — How Apple Moved Manufacturing to China 14:41 — When China Began Controlling the Relationship 25:16 — Made in China 2025 & Industrial Policy 42:16 — Apple’s Lawsuit Against OpenAI 55:44 — Lessons for America’s Industrial Future 58:30 — Final Thoughts & Book Recommendation Get Your Copy of Apple in China Here!

  2. Jul 10

    The Beef Crisis: Why Imports Aren't Lowering Prices

    Americans are paying more for beef than ever before, but the reasons extend far beyond temporary inflation or seasonal shortages. According to Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF USA, today’s record prices are the culmination of more than forty years of policy decisions that steadily weakened America’s cattle industry. This week on The Big 3 with senior economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg, the discussion begins with the historic decline in the U.S. cattle herd, now the smallest in roughly seventy-five years. Bullard argues this contraction did not happen overnight. Instead, decades of consolidation among meatpackers, declining competition, and steadily increasing imports have hollowed out the domestic cattle industry. The result is fewer ranchers, fewer feedlots, fewer processing plants, and ultimately fewer cattle available to meet growing consumer demand. The team also challenge the common assumption that high grocery prices mean ranchers are enjoying record profits. Ranching remains an asset-intensive business with significant land, feed, fuel, and labor costs. Because cattle require nearly three years from breeding to market, producers cannot quickly respond to changing prices. Many ranchers still operate on narrow margins despite higher cattle prices, while retailers have captured a growing share of profits throughout the supply chain. Another major theme is the misconception that imports solve food inflation. Despite beef imports increasing dramatically over recent years, retail beef prices have continued climbing. Bullard argues imports simply displace domestic production without creating new American ranchers, new cattle, or new processing capacity. Instead, he contends that long-term affordability depends on rebuilding the domestic herd and giving producers confidence that future investments will not be undercut by policy changes or import surges. The conversation also explores broader structural issues affecting the industry, including concentrated meatpacking, country-of-origin labeling, enforcement of antitrust laws, and tariff-rate quotas. Bullard argues that restoring competition throughout the supply chain is essential if producers are to expand herds and consumers are to benefit from more stable prices. Finally, the discussion turns to Brazil and the ongoing Section 301 investigation into illegal deforestation. Bullard explains why R-CALF believes Brazilian beef should not receive an exemption from potential tariffs, arguing that beef exports are directly connected to the deforestation practices under investigation. Exempting beef, he says, would undermine both environmental objectives and American cattle producers. The episode concludes with a broader message: rebuilding America’s cattle industry is not simply about lowering grocery bills. It is about restoring rural communities, strengthening national food security, and ensuring that future generations of independent ranchers have the confidence to invest in expanding domestic production. CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Why Beef Prices Are So High 00:41 - America's Beef Crisis Explained 01:51 - Bill Bullard Joins The Big Three 02:40 - Why the U.S. Cattle Herd Is Shrinking 13:21 - Why Ranchers Still Struggle 21:26 - Rebuilding America's Beef Industry 24:31 - Brazilian Beef & Section 301 Tariffs 29:30 - The Path to Affordable Beef

  3. Jun 26

    China’s Massive Port Network – Why the U.S. Should Be Concerned

    China’s growing influence in Latin America extends well beyond trade. According to CSIS Associate Fellow Henry Ziemer, Beijing has spent years building an interconnected maritime network that includes ports, shipping companies, cranes, cargo scanners, logistics software, rail corridors, and supporting infrastructure throughout the Western Hemisphere. Rather than viewing these investments individually, Ziemer argues they should be understood as parts of a coordinated system that provides China with increasing economic leverage and strategic advantages. The discussion examines Peru’s Chancay megaport, China’s expanding role in Panama, the growing use of Chinese-built port equipment and digital systems, and how these investments could affect U.S. supply chains during future geopolitical crises. The conversation also explores China’s competitive advantages in infrastructure development, America’s declining shipbuilding capacity, and why rebuilding domestic industrial capability may be essential if the United States hopes to offer countries throughout the Americas a credible alternative to Chinese investment. CHAPTERS: 00:00 – China’s Growing Maritime Network 01:45 – Meet Henry Ziemer (CSIS) 05:30 – Why Ports Work as a Network 10:40 – COSCO and the Chancay Megaport 16:40 – Cranes, Scanners & Digital Infrastructure 22:10 – China’s Infrastructure Leverage 26:40 – Panama, BlackRock & the Port Battle 32:30 – Why Latin America Keeps Choosing China 35:15 – Can America Rebuild Shipbuilding? 38:20 – Final Takeaways: Why Ports Matter

  4. Jun 12

    China's Metal Empire and the Fight for Industrial Power

    This week on The Big 3, CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg sit down with Ben Carlson of SAFE’s Center for Strategic Industrial Materials to examine China’s growing dominance in steel, aluminum, and copper—and what it means for America’s industrial future. The conversation centers on SAFE’s new report, "Strategic Surpluses: China’s Economic Warfare on Major Metals," which argues that China’s vast production capacity is not simply the result of market forces or planning mistakes. Instead, Carlson explains how Beijing has deliberately cultivated strategic surpluses across key industrial sectors, creating manufacturing capacity that can support economic objectives in peacetime and national security objectives during periods of conflict. The discussion explores the staggering scale of China’s metal production, the role of state support and industrial subsidies, and the consequences for American manufacturers. Carlson also explains why tariffs, while important, are often insufficient on their own. Through transshipment, tariff inversion, and complex global supply chains, subsidized Chinese inputs can still find their way into the U.S. market through finished products. Finally, the episode turns to solutions. What would a successful American industrial strategy actually look like? The answer goes beyond tariffs to include energy policy, infrastructure investment, permitting reform, recycling, and stronger rules of origin that align domestic demand with domestic production. For anyone interested in trade, manufacturing, national security, or industrial policy, this is an essential conversation about one of the defining economic challenges of our time. Learn more about SAFE: https://secureenergy.org/ Read the report: https://secureenergy.org/strategic-surpluses-chinas-economic-warfare-on-major-metals/ CHAPTERS:  00:00 - 01:41 | Introduction & Opening Monologue 01:42 - 02:57 | Meet Ben Carlson of SAFE 02:58 - 08:08 | China’s Strategic Metal Surplus 08:09 - 11:19 | How China’s Industrial Policy Differs from the West 11:20 - 15:55 | China’s Anti-Overcapacity Campaign 15:56 - 18:45 | Why Tariffs Haven’t Been Enough 18:46 - 23:23 | Transshipment & Tariff Inversion 23:24 - 25:56 | The Transformer Supply Chain Case Study 25:57 - 28:01 | Beyond Tariffs: What Comes Next? 28:02 - 33:01 | Energy Policy, Aluminum & Manufacturing 33:02 - 37:02 | Can America Compete Without Copying China? 37:03 - 40:05 | Production Capacity vs. Trade Deficits

  5. May 15

    The Chinese "Electrostate" Behind EVs, Batteries, and Solar

    This week’s episode of The Big 3 features special guest Rogan Quinn of Rhodium Group, author of Minerals, Metals and Megawatts: How China’s Power Generation Drives Its Industrial Metals Ecosystem. Quinn joins CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg to explain how China became what he calls an “electrostate” — an industrial power whose dominance in electricity generation, metals processing, and manufacturing mutually reinforce one another.   The conversation breaks down how China’s cheap thermal power, hydroelectric capacity, state-backed credit, and local-government growth incentives helped build the world’s most powerful metals and electrification supply chain. Rather than simply controlling minerals in the ground, China dominates what happens after extraction: refining, smelting, separation, processing, and downstream manufacturing for batteries, EVs, solar panels, electronics, and other electric-current-driven industries. Quinn also highlights the demand side of China’s system, especially batteries, where falling costs have opened new use cases across vehicles, storage, and heavy-duty trucking. But the system contains major vulnerabilities, including weak cash flows, overcapacity, global demand dependence, and exposure to recession. The episode closes with lessons from Japan and South Korea, and Quinn’s central takeaway: any country hoping to compete with China’s industrial ecosystem must solve the problem of abundant, cheap power. Read Rhodium Group's report here: https://rhg.com/research/minerals-metals-and-megawatts-how-chinas-power-generation-drives-its-industrial-metals-ecosystem/ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Introduction 03:15 - China's Electrostate, Cheap Power, & the Metals Machine Behind EV Dominance 10:16 - Battery Demand, Industrial Scale, & the Engine Driving China's Supply Chains 19:06 - Rare Earth Leverage, Global Risks, & the Fight to Compete with China

  6. May 8

    Coalition for New Trade's Beth Baltzan Discusses Rebuilding American Resilience

    This week’s episode of The Big 3 welcomes Beth Baltzan, former senior advisor to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai during the Biden Administration and now deputy director of the Coalition for New Trade, for a wide-ranging discussion on how the global trading system broke — and what should replace it. Baltzan argues that the postwar system originally recognized the danger of unchecked capital mobility and sought to empower workers, but that framework unraveled as floating exchange rates, liberalized capital flows, and free-trade orthodoxy took hold.   The conversation traces how the WTO-era model rewarded capital, weakened labor, and encouraged supply-chain concentration — most visibly through China’s manufacturing dominance and the COVID-era shortages that exposed U.S. vulnerability. Hosts Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg highlight how import competition and offshoring suppressed wages, hollowed out industrial communities, and shifted economic gains away from workers. Baltzan makes the case for a new trade framework built around resilience, labor rights, environmental standards, and corrective action — not reflexive free trade agreements. The episode closes with a discussion of the upcoming USMCA review, rapid-response labor enforcement, digital trade risks, and the need for a bipartisan industrial strategy that rebuilds domestic production while creating a fairer global trading system. Learn more about the Coalition for New Trade: https://www.coalitionfornewtrade.org/ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - INTRODUCTION 03:24 - BRETTON WOODS, BROKEN PROMISES, & THE RISE OF CAPITAL-FIRST TRADE 19:35 - CHINA SHOCK, SUPPLY FRAGILITY, & THE WORKER COST OF FREE TRADE 44:42 - USMCA REVIEW, LABOR RIGHTS, & THE FIGHT FOR RESILIENT TRADE

  7. May 1

    New CPA Economics Report Warns of Foreign Control Over U.S. Antibiotic Supply

    This week’s episode of The Big 3 focused on CPA’s new report on the foreign control of America’s antibiotic supply chain and the collapse of the domestic production base that once supported it. CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg traced the story back to an East Syracuse, New York facility that once produced 70% of America’s penicillin supply, but now produces nothing, symbolizing how the U.S. lost control of a critical industry. The discussion highlighted how China now supplies roughly 87% of the antibiotic active pharmaceutical ingredients imported by the United States, while India formulates much of those ingredients into the finished drugs Americans consume. The hosts stressed that this is not just a country-level dependence, but a highly concentrated firm-level chokepoint, with a handful of companies controlling much of the trade. They also underscored that foreign producers are not merely cheaper — in some cases, they are cutting corners on safety, falsifying data, and exposing American patients to greater risk. Finally, the episode explored how policymakers can begin rebuilding antibiotic sovereignty through a mix of tariff-rate quotas, procurement reform, allied sourcing, and support for the remaining Western footholds in production, especially the Sandoz Kundl facility in Austria and the limited final-dose capacity still operating in the United States.

  8. Apr 24

    The Tariff Debate — Affordability, Jobs, & the Case for Domestic Production

    This week’s episode of The Big 3 used CPA senior economist Mihir Torsekar’s recent Ohio State debate on whether tariffs are “just” as a springboard to examine three core arguments in the trade debate: affordability, employment, and production. First, Mihir and Andrew argued that the cost-of-living crisis is being misdiagnosed. While tariffs are often blamed for inflation, they noted that the biggest drivers of household strain are non-tradable essentials like shelter, healthcare, and energy, not tariff-affected manufactured goods. They pointed to the recent Minneapolis Fed analysis and category-level inflation data to argue that tariffs cannot explain the broader rise in prices. Second, the discussion turned to employment and inequality. The hosts argued that free trade did not lift all boats, but instead helped drive factory closures, job displacement, wage stagnation, and wider regional decline, while the biggest gains flowed to capital, top earners, and asset holders. Finally, the team examined whether tariffs are actually driving reshoring. Here, the hosts pointed to rising durable goods orders, stronger manufacturing PMI readings, improved labor productivity, and gains in domestic market share and output in sectors like primary metals and motor vehicles. Their larger point was that tariffs, done right and sustained over time, can help redirect the economy away from consumption and toward production.

  9. Apr 17

    Overcapacity, Forced Labor, and China's PNTR Reckoning

    This week’s episode of The Big 3 with CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg centered on three major trade investigations that go to the heart of CPA’s industrial policy agenda: global overcapacity, forced labor, and revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations status. First, the crew examined the Section 301 overcapacity investigation, arguing that China remains the central driver of global industrial excess, but that countries such as Vietnam, India, Mexico, and Egypt also function as conduits or secondary sources of distortion. They pointed to enormous overcapacity in sectors like steel and solar, warning that subsidized production is flooding world markets and undercutting U.S. manufacturers. Second, the hosts turned to forced labor, describing it as a hidden production subsidy that lowers labor costs, suppresses fair competition, and is deeply intertwined with the same supply chains driving overcapacity, particularly in Chinese polysilicon and solar production. Finally, they discussed CPA’s comments to the U.S. International Trade Commission on revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations status. The team argued that China’s entry into the WTO devastated American manufacturing communities, and they highlighted CPA modeling showing that moving China to Column 2 tariff treatment could generate large GDP gains, create jobs, and begin correcting a decades-old policy mistake.

  10. Apr 10

    Metals, Medicine, and "Liberation Day" One Year Later

    On this week’s episode of The Big 3, CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg focused on a new metals proclamation, a pharmaceutical proclamation, and the one-year anniversary of President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs. The team explain why the new metals action is so significant: steel, aluminum, and copper tariffs will now apply to the full customs value of imported products rather than just the declared value of their metal content, a change aimed at stopping chronic undervaluation and customs gaming. They also noted the new tiered structure and the need to keep exemptions narrow. Second, the conversation turned to pharmaceuticals, where the administration made a positive national-security finding and imposed a 100% tariff on patented brand-name drugs and key inputs for companies without U.S. production plans, while creating lower tariff tiers for firms that invest onshore. The hosts welcomed the move but argued generics still need to be included, given their central role in U.S. healthcare. Finally, they assessed Liberation Day one year on, arguing that the worst tariff predictions never materialized. Instead, they pointed to stronger durable goods orders, rising industrial production, sector-specific gains in metals and autos, and little evidence that tariffs are meaningfully driving inflation.

  11. Mar 27

    Wartime Footing: How the United States Can Reverse China's Dominance of Battery Minerals Processing

    THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF "THE BIG 3" focused on the national security risks of America’s dependence on China for critical minerals processing, especially in the lead-acid battery supply chain. CPA senior economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg were joined by retired Major General Bill Crane and retired Rear Admiral Peter Brown to discuss CPA’s new report with the Responsible Battery Coalition on how the United States can reverse China’s dominance in minerals processing. The conversation first explored why lead-acid batteries remain indispensable to the American economy and military readiness, powering everything from trucks and hospitals to telecom systems and defense infrastructure. The second segment examined the strategic vulnerability created by China’s control over antimony processing, ports, shipping, and industrial inputs, with guests warning that America has offshored not just production, but surge capacity in the event of conflict. The final segment turned to policy solutions, including Project Vault, tariffs, domestic stockpiling, maritime capacity, and the importance of extending the 45X tax credit to encourage onshore processing and manufacturing. The message was clear: Economic security and national security are inseparable, and rebuilding America’s industrial base is essential not only for today’s competitiveness, but for future generations.

  • 11 Episodes

About

The Big 3 with CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg breaks down the three biggest stories shaping U.S. trade, industrial policy, and the American economy each week.  From tariffs, China, and supply chains to inflation, manufacturing, and economic security, Mihir and Andrew cut through the noise with sharp analysis to explain what’s really happening—and who it benefits. Focused on what matters for American workers and producers, The Big 3 connects the headlines to the deeper forces reshaping the U.S. economy—and what that means for the future of U.S. competitiveness.

Information

  • Creator
    Coalition for a Prosperous America
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Big 3
  • Show Website
    The Big 3